Seems to be a thinner/extender for "traditional" oil-based paints, but also promoted as rust treatment/wood treatment/primer.

Of interest to me because:-

(a) It MIGHT be a better-formulated version of my "experimental" sunflower /linseed oil based treatments (I'd guess its a linseed oil base, though of course they don't tell you).

(b) I THINK they sell thinner/extender for "traditional" oil-based paint in the hardware stores here, though of course its labelled in Chinese. If I can get a fairly convincing translation of some labels, I might try some as a local substitute. Not expensive.

edlithgowSuper user

Number of posts : 433Registration date : 2010-06-01

Subject: Re: Penetrol? Wed Sep 09, 2015 1:10 am

Actually they do tell, because they (have to?) publish an MSDS. Its got linseed in it, but the main ingredient is soya long oil alkyd resin, which is apparently a standard paint base.

Might dry a bit too hard for general underbody rustproofing, but should be superior for the topsides-rust-with-aluminium trick.

Haven't tried it, so don't have any useful feedback. If you don't mind your car looking a little patch-work, you could try using different methods/recipes on the same rust area, see which section rusts back through first.

edlithgowSuper user

Number of posts : 433Registration date : 2010-06-01

Subject: Re: Penetrol? Thu Sep 10, 2015 7:04 am

Justwatching wrote:

If you don't mind your car looking a little patch-work...

If I minded that, I'd be VERY unhappy

I've been trying a few minor variants. Boiled linseed oil seems to be the best binder tried so far, but I bought that in Australia and AFAIK you can't buy it here.

The car isn't currently very rusty in Scottish or structural terms. It has suffered in the past, probably due to being owned by a surfer, but I think I've stabilised/slowed most of that damage.

I did recently find some fairly advanced "new" crustiness behind the driver side front plastic wheel arch liner, which I hope I have caught in time.

Where it differs from most British bangers is in outside-in deterioration of the paintwork, which is down to the primer over most of the roof and bonnet and has some rust bleed-through. Can't remember seeing that much in the Yook, and I'd guess its down to sunlight, temperature and maybe a bit of air pollution.

Yeah, it's not common at all to see the paint thin out like that here. My Rover has lost the lacquer on its bonnet, roof and boot. The finish looks flat compared to other cars and feels slightly rough to the touch. That's from 28 years of being outside. Sunlight I suspect.

Do you the previous owners surfer habit could have been related to the metalisation problem you had with the oil? Specifically, sand acting as a wear catalyst, introduced via the air intake?

Last edited by Justwatching on Thu Sep 10, 2015 9:13 pm; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : because sunlight is one word)

edlithgowSuper user

Number of posts : 433Registration date : 2010-06-01

Subject: Re: Penetrol? Fri Sep 11, 2015 1:23 am

Dust in the air might be a factor, not so much because of the last-but-one surfer dude owner, but because the campus is located in a farming area and they don't seem to worry about soil c conservation much, so it is often very dusty.

However, the previous owners kept it in a city and seem to have dealer-serviced it by the book (though completely ignoring the bodywork) and air filter looks OK.

I've thought of supplementing the filter but I'll probably never get around to it.

I think the metal in the oil is perhaps just a consequence of poor/late lubrication of the cams, perhaps made worse by "modern" low zinc oils. This may be inherent design fault with flat tappet OHC engines, in which case you'd expect metal in the oil to be quite common in aged machines that might have lost surface hardening on the cams.

I'm not sure it isn't common. I only noticed it because the car is left unused for long periods and it had a chance to settle out.

has some graphs of oil arrival time at the cams. Varies with engine and oil, and these temperatures are lower than I'll encounter here, but some of the times are pretty long.

I'm thinking this could be addressed relatively simply by a bar or pipe above the cams that allowed direct oiling, but I'd need clips under the cam pedestal bolts to secure it, and I not sure I want to mess around with the tension on those bolts, though it'd probably be OK.

It would be better addressed by a pre-lube system, which all cars really ought to have. That involves some high pressure plumbing, though, which'd be challenging to arrange here.